Law and Religion in the Rainbow Nation: Judging South Africa’s Diversity of Beliefs

12:10-1:30 pmRoom 120, Yale Law School

Albie SachsJudge, Constitutional Court of South Africa

Owen FissSterling Professor Emeritus, Yale Law School

Since the end of the apartheid regime and the adoption in 1996 of a new constitution, the South African Constitutional Court has addressed many issues related to diversity of religious beliefs that resonate in American jurisprudence: prohibition of liquor sales on Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas; the right of Muslim widows to receive state benefits; the right of Christian schools to impose corporal correction on errant boys; the right of the Rastafari to smoke marijuana; the right of a Tamil girl to wear a jeweled nose stud at school; and whether same-sex unions can be called marriages. Please join us for a conversation on adjudicating these difficult matters.